Small delivery trucks and other commercial vehicles and vans are sold by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) with completed vehicle floors, sometimes having pre-installed seats. However, certain vehicle owners desire to customize their vehicle and configure or reconfigure the seating arrangement therein for specific purposes. For example, one vehicle owner may wish to configure the seats in a vehicle, such as a van, to enable the van to safely transport both passengers and cargo. In another example, a vehicle owner may wish to remove the original seats and reconfigure the arrangement of seats to enable the vehicle to safely transport a passenger confined to a mobility device, such as a wheelchair or motorized scooter.
A key consideration for vehicle conversion is that vehicle seats must meet the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and Regulations. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the FMVSS relevant to seating systems establishes requirements for seats, attachment assemblies and installation, to minimize the chances of failure due to forces acting on seats in the case of vehicle impact. As such, in any vehicle conversion in which seats are installed or removed and re-configured, the seats must meet the requirements set by the FMVSS.
To reconfigure a vehicle's seating arrangement, it is known in the vehicle conversion business to remove the various layers of flooring installed by the original equipment manufacturer down to the vehicle's true “floor,” which typically comprises an uneven metallic surface, referred to herein as “the OEM floor,” as shown at reference numeral 101 in FIG. 1. At that point, the vehicle converter can rebuild various layers on top of OEM floor 101 to enable the mounting of seats in the new configuration.
In one example, it is known that the vehicle floor atop the OEM floor can be replaced, in part, with a series of tracks traveling parallel to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, wherein the tracks are capable of receiving and securing fastener elements protruding from the bottom of the replacement seats. Using these tracks, a vehicle owner can restrainably move and relocate an installed seat forwards or backwards, parallel to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle, to enable the seats to be securely positioned closer or farther to the front of the vehicle, typically, in full compliance with FMVSS. Such track assemblies provide a specific benefit to the vehicle owner: the ability to move the seats forward or backward, or side-to-side, from one point in the track to another point, as desired, to reconfigure the seating arrangement quickly and easily, without the aid of a conversion technician. However, the flexibility provided by these track assemblies also comes with certain drawbacks. For example, the track assemblies are expensive and complicated to install—and these drawbacks only need be endured if the vehicle owner requires that the vehicle seat configuration remain flexible and repositionable without taking the vehicle out of service. For vehicle owners who prefer a “permanent” customized seating configuration (which can only be reconfigured by a vehicle conversion technician), these drawbacks can be avoided by utilizing the disclosures of the present invention.